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Cardinals Fire OC Mike McCoy

Could the days of constantly running David Johnson straight into a pile of defenders be over? The Cardinals fired offensive coordinator Mike McCoy this morning, replacing him with Byron Leftwich. It's the second straight season that McCoy has been fired in the middle of a season; the Broncos fired him halfway through last year. Leftwich is a Bruce Arians disciple, so the hope here is that we'll get a more exciting Cardinals offense that a) uses Johnson smarter and b) throws downfield more often.

Arizona's offense is awful. I don't see enough of them to know if it is mostly the OC or mostly just a lack of talent. I liked Leftwich as a player hopefully his career is not ruined by taking on this dumpster fire.

Taking over midseason for a crappy team may not be the best circumstances, but I'm intrigued to see how a recently-retired player/relatively inexperienced position coach like Leftwich does as a coordinator. Before 2017 Wisconsin gave Jim Leonhard, who retired around the same time Leftwich did and likewise only had one year of experience as a position coach, their defensive coordinator job. In year 1 the results were fantastic. (This year... TBD).

I like the idea of a guy like Leftwich running the offense for a rookie QB. Leftwich was at that bad-starter-good-backup level for pretty much his whole career, so he certainly understands what it's like to be a struggling QB. He knows what kind of offense made his life easier, and what kind of offense made it harder. Who could know better than him how to design an offense to get a young QB comfortable?

offensuive line has problems. some injuries, some subpar players. also quaretrvback is rookie and struggling. wideouts good. c. kirk nice rookie, l. fitzgerald legendary player btu old and in waning part of carere. rb d. johnson excellent when healthy. bad results this season possibly due to junky line and coaching. possible d. johnson stats will take off under different coaching.

There are not a lot of ways this offense could get much worse. If Leftwich's tenure is similar (or equal) to Buce Arians' time with the Steelers, then the Cards could have a seriously good running game ... and a serious case of Roethlisbergering for Rosen. Which is good if your line is great in pass pro, but not if it breaks down in 2 seconds.

McCoy successfully parlayed the 2011 Tebow miracle into his head coaching tenure with the Chargers, where he was horrendously overmatched for the most part, but often bailed out by Phillip Rivers. Then he went back to Denver and oversaw last season's abomination of an offence. So this latest abject failure ought to spell the end for him in any sort of senior coaching position, although that can never be counted out in the NFL's old boys network.

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